The World With Out Me
by Sarah Sanderson
Summary: UPDATED! I now know where this fic it going! :D It's a Time Travel Fic with Ron, Hermione, Neville and Ginny back in Tom Riddle's time, fresh from the Battle of Hogwarts - and this entire Fic will be from Tom's Point of veiw as he deals with his Gang and trys to suss out the strange new student that don't seem to like him... lol
1. Chapter 1

The World With Out Me

Harry Potter Fanfiction by Sarah Sanderson

Disclaimer – If I owned Harry Potter I would have to be JK, which sadly I'm not :( a girl can dream though right? Until then I own nothing

Tom's relationship with the other residents of Wool's Orphanage was strained, to say the least. This was something that in his younger years the dutiful matron Mrs. Cole had tried feverishly to reconcile, but to not result. Or not lasting result by any rate. No sooner would Tom become friendly with some of the other children and they would either reveal their friendly behaviour to all be part of some nasty trick to humiliate or use him, or they would stumble across him in one of his "Freakish" moments, when impossible and cursed things would happen in his presence like they some how gravitated towards him, after which his so called friends would have nothing to do with him.

His only seemingly true friends, who never betrayed him or used him with out opening asking for his help first, where three boys named Hampton, Peet, and George, who where older and more knowledgeable about the world then he, at the mere age of nine, could ever have been. They would sneak out of the orphanage at night and break into the surrounding houses to steal things. They needed a smaller boy to fit though the windows, who could get in and then unlock the door and let them walk in like they owned the place. And the one thing that always made Tom proud was that they never even thought to approach any of the other boys his age or size. They knew they needed a boy to help them and thought straight away of him. They didn't even care about the things he could seemingly do, or even try to get him to show them how it was done. They never lied to him, they just told him they needed him and why, let him in on their little game, and for the first time in his life he felt like he belonged.

It didn't last. Good feelings and good times never did in his life. In the end he just stopped trying.

Tom got sick, or so Mrs. Cole said. There was a snake in the bathroom stalls, and everyone ran away screaming – but not him. He walked calm and quite up to the snake, and saw on it's face the same look of fear that was on every child's. The snake was as lost and alone as every orphan in that place. Tom wanted some how to help it. To show it how to leave that horrid place and go _home_. A place he could never have. He spoke slowly, so as not to scare the snake, told it to calm down and not to worry.

"_I'll look after you_" he breathed the words he had longed his whole life to be told. Even with his friends he was still not looked after, they watched each other's backs and shared the spoils and the laughs – but they weren't brother's any more than Mrs. Cole was their mother – just ghostly empty shadows of what a family should be. So when he spoke he expected the words to sound wrong, to be twisted and un familiar to his mouth and ears, but some how they felt unbelievably right in every possible way.

Then all Hell broke lose.

"Oh my dear havens! Riddle what are you doing? Back away slowly from the s-s-snake. I'm sure it will not hurt you, just come away now" Mrs. Cole's whimper of a voice called panicked from the door.

"What? No I know it wont hurt me. She just wants to get out of here, she wont bite" Tom's could see the confusion colouring her face as clear as he could hear it in his own voice. What was she talking about? Had she not heard the snake's reply? It came as clear as a bell to his ears, that sweet pleading promise not to hurt a child, not one of them. Why could this women not see the snake's fear? Hear her words. But before Tom could ponder this anymore Mrs. Cole had grabbed his arm and painfully yanked him though the door frame away from his… _friend_? If a beast could be a friend.

He remembered afterwards the look the snake gave him as he looked back briefly, apologetic about how powerless he was. The snakes eyes where wide and there was some cold reptilian pain coursing though them. Hurt, fear, pain, regret, disappointment, loss, and utter terror all in one brief flash. Then the snake's eyes where gone and Mrs. Cole had basically thrown Tom into his room and as he blinked to bring himself back and deal with what was happening he heard the sound of the matron's keys in the lock. He was stuck there.

That night Hampton, Peet, and George snuck out with out him, apologetic murmurings though his key hole about how they couldn't get Mrs. Cole's keys away from her in time to make the night's trip worth it, and he was just to hold tight tonight and they would tell of their adventures in the morning when he was let out to break his fast. Tom remembered Peet's warm brown eye staring at him though the key hole. Tom had hated them that night. All three of them. He hated Peet looking in on him like he was some sort of caged animal, and he hated that they where still sneaking out when what they needed to be doing was sneaking in – to the now locked bathroom where his new friend was trapped until morning when a man was to come at Matron's request and kill his friend. Tom hated all the boys and went to bed glaring daggers into the mantel image of Peet's eye. He hated them as he used his old coat hanger to sneak out his room. He hated them as he snuck along the hall, alone and utterly un loved. And he hated them as he snuck into the bathroom and held out his arm to the beauty that was the snake. He slept that night with her under his blankets, hugging his arm, and he hated his old friends as he dreamed of snakes and a marshy battlefield from a long time ago.

When Tom saw the police man leaving Matron's office the next morning, with a sobbing Mrs. Cole left inside, and the truth of what the boys had been gossiping over breakfast (A breakfast that his _human_ friends had not been with him for like they had promised) sunk in and his heart like he was being stoned alive while chained to solid ice – then he could not bring himself to hate them. A brief flash of Peet's warm brown eye flashed before his eyes, and he ran back to his room, holding in the sobs until the door was shut and he was cowering hidden in his wardroom (In you could call it that as it was so barren of clothes). The snake he had crisind Nagini curled around him in a serpent like embrace and he pressed his face into her soft and smooth scaled and let his sobs let rip though his body. He could hear George's mocking playfully voice echo in his eardrums, scolding him for being a baby and crying. But then he sobbed all the harder as the thought of where George was now. He gasped out in wheezy rasps that he knew now only his darling Nagini could understand.

"George isn't coming back to Wool's. He's been sent away. He's almost a man, so they treat him like one. He's going to the big place where they put all kinds of criminals. He's locked in there will all of those – those monsters. I'll never see him again, I know it."

Tom took in a big shuddering breathe. He wasn't entirely sure when he was telling Nagini about the fake of the boys – no the men – who had been the closest thing he had to brothers when she had never even met them. But she had almost met them, and she seemed to be lessening intently, a faint encouraging hiss echoing round the cavernous wardrobe as her head rested on his back soothingly.

"Hampton ran away. Don't know where. If they find him they will lock him away too. With George – on somewhere else – maybe they will lock him up in some where else like here – he said he had lived in a few. But he's never coming back either – I know it. They've left me Nagini" His face was stinging because of the shear amount of salt water running across it onto Nagini's beautiful body. Peet's warm brown eye flashed at him though his closed eyes though the key hole. He chocked back a rasping sob that felt strong enough to shake the whole room. He felt like he was about to puke up all his organs right there and them.

"Peet's – Peet's – Peet's _gone_" He couldn't bring himself to say the word he was aiming for. Not even in this strange hissing touge he had discovered. He rememberd the first time he had heard that word, before he had known what it ment, and how it related to him. He had thought it had and warm wooden sound like "Bed" but had long ago learnt it's true meaning. Now he understood more than ever. Bed was warm and safe, but this other word was far from it and terrible as the darkest shadows of his nightmares. He thought numbly if all four boys would have made it back to wool's ok if he had been with them. If he had been sneaky for them and they hadn't had to wake the owner. The owner who owned a gun.

"Peet's – gone" he hissed again, in some sort of mangled voice that was not human nor snake it seemed. But Nagini understood. She rested her heavy head on his back like a cold scaly hug. And in that moment Peet saw the war torn marshes of his dreams, and the snakes, and the children running to their parents – and he felt a cold blinding rage towards the man he knew only as 'Father', towards the man who according to the hushed conversation he had over heard matron have with the Doctor, had left his 'mother' (Another word harsh and unused in his mind it seemed) when she needed him most. He had left her to wander about and bring Tom into the world. He had left her so she became what Peet now was as well. For the first time in his life Tom cupped his hands and prayed to the God that Mrs. Cole always talked about.

"Please, please God man, if your there. Talk to Peet for me. I don't know his full name – I think it might be Davy something… but you'll know him. He's new up there, and he has warm brown eyes. He told me he never had a mother because she left him here – and he always wanted one. You have my mother up there too – so could you please tell Peet that he can have her, since I'm a big boy now – I do not need a mother any more. I'm going to find the man who made my mother _gone_ – and I'm going to send him to you – so you can send him to Hell"

Nagini hissed approvingly at his words, and he smiled at her as he wiped his face on his sleeve. He could feel the spark growing in his eye. That was the last time Tom Marvolo Riddle had cried.

**Ok so bit of a weird chapter, but the next one starts with him in 5th year, and he will reference back to his times at Wool's and his back story is important so that when you meet cold and cruel 15 year old Tom you don't think he's just a little shit and stop reading. Next chapter will also involved some time travellers – not that he knows that :P**

**Comments and Reviews are my air now that all my favourite TV shows have stopped for summer – so please don't leave me here to suffocate, ok? :)**


	2. Chapter 2

**The World With Out Me**

**Chapter 2 – Meanwhile Back at the Ranch**

OK so I need to apologies from the bottom of my heart that it has been SOOO long since I've updated this and I kinda left it hanging. Here are a few things I my defence before you start throwing stuff at me – A member of my family who will not be named here somehow managed to delete Microsoft Word on my computer and I have only recently managed to get it working again, I was leaveing this for a while because of a combination of Writters Block and Exams, and by the time I had time and creativity to write again I honest to god had forgotten about this Fanfiction, so yeah, I forgot that I should have been writing it :/ sorry guys!

**Disclaimer – Considering I'm an 18 year old student who is yet to get anything published I really don't think I own any part of the Harry Potter series, although you know I haven't checked my safety deposit box in a while, maybe JK left me a Christmas present… probably not.**

Tom stared dully out of his small window. He had packed and re-packed his bag for School six time over now and still the time for him to leave hadn't come. He had woken up early, even for him, and had been unable to sleep again with thoughts of returning to Hogwarts running though his head. Thoughts of returning _home_. Mrs Cole said that he misused the word, since he was talking about a School, but as he had politely informed her; Wools was the least homelike place he had ever been in and his school was where he _belonged_. Your home is where you belonged, and oh how Tom belonged there.

It had been 5 years since Professor Dumbledore had arrived at Wool's orphanage and told Tom that he was a Wizard. That he was special. 7 since Peet Davis and his warm brown eyes had left Tom's life forever. 2 Years since Tom had discovered Corvinus Gaunt's Journal telling of his discovery of the concealed trapdoor and a series of magical tunnels that led to the Legendary Chamber of Secrets, and how when Hogwarts' plumbing became more elaborate in the eighteenth century, the entrance to the Chamber was threatened, being located on the site of a proposed bathroom. Sure enough When Tom had followed the scribblings of a map in the journal he had found himself, embarrassingly enough, in a girls bathroom that had a snake engraved over a tap that did not work. After that it was easy. Tom had spoken Parseltongue, which had been as natural as breathing ever since Nagini had found him. Last Year Tom had opened the chamber of Secrets and unleashed the monster with in, both the chamber, and his own soul. He had killed a girl, and tried to kill others, but had been forced to close the Chamber and frame another student.

Now Tom was returning to Hogwarts for his 6th year at Hogwarts, determined to find a way to open the chamber again sometime in the future, when it's opening would no longer result in him being sent back to the hell hole that was Wools Orphanage. It wasn't as bad once he really got a hang on his powers. The day of Peet's funnel one of the other orphans, Billy Stubbs, had mocked Tom for following the older boys around like their _pet_. So Tom hung Billy's _pet_ rabbit from the rafters. There was never any proof, but the children still new to stay away from him after that. He didn't cry, he didn't raise his voice, he didn't have friends. He was special, and the special people in this world walk alone. And that's how Tom liked it - alone. Not that he didn't like to have people around – but they were his _pets_, his play things. Speaking of _pets_…

Amy Benson, an overly volutes girl of 14 with mousey brown hair and fierce blue eyes, had wondered vaguely into his room with an expression on her face like she was pleasantly surprised by her surroundings. She always looked like that around Tom, as though she wasn't sure what she was doing with him but she was happy to do so. She had been 9 and a half when she and her friend Dennis Bishop, a stocky boy born for farm work and life in the wilderness with his coy fearless view of the world, had decided it would be fun to bring up the _pet_ thing while on a trip out with the orphanage. They were glorious in their distaste for him, so he pretended to cry and ran off to a nearby Cave. They had followed, as he knew they would. There in the cold darkness he had unleashed his fury in a might of magic even he had not known himself capable of. And from that day on they were his followers, latterly following him in all and everything, like he had sucked their free will away from them like it was their lives breathe. They were who he sat with at lunch. Mrs Cole fondly thought of Tom and Dennis as "The best of friends" but he suspected this was only because she could not except the cold truth that the other orphans all saw clearly. Dennis was enthralled in Tom's web, as was Amy. Once he started Hogwarts Tom was unable to use magic outside of School, much to his annoyance, but he didn't have to use magic to control his minions. Last year he had decided it would be fun to play the part of the young lover, to win over Mrs Cole's affections again since she was always so absorbed with trashy romantic novels. He and Amy staged an 'emocanaly passionate affair of the heart' as Mrs Cole called it, and he began getting all kinds of advantages and treats that the other orphans where not privy too.

"Are you going somewhere?" Amy's question brought him back to the present. She was staring down mournfully at his packed bag, only one bag as he had so little possessions. He rolled his eyes tiredly, a habit he was trying to get out of. Every year she was the same. Maybe he really had addled her brain…

"I'm going away to school Benson. Like I always do on September 1st. I'll be back in the summer" She looked blankly between the bag and his face, then scrunched her face up like a disgruntled two year old. He wished she wouldn't, she was more appealing with her skin smooth and passive, something he had begun prizing her for since it bothered the other boys so much that she, Amy Benson the prettiest girl in the area let alone the orphanage, was with him. Yes, he had been lucky in how she had turned out. Suddenly her face crumbled and she looked like she'd just watched a puppy kicked to death, always the same routine with her.

"But what will I do while you're gone?" She was honestly concerned. Tom had considered telling her to just sit still and do nothing but wait for him once – just to see if she'd do it – but decided against it when the thought crossed his mind that breathing might count as something in her mind, and he liked being in Mrs Cole's good books to much to have his love interest die waiting for him to return. So this year he had decided on a new ploy.

"You are to act as though you are attracted to Dennis – not in love you hear me – just attracted. The two of you will be a couple while I'm gone" Any normal person might have done this for kind reasons, wanting the two orphans to find happiness and comfort in each other until their master returned, but Tom lacked any such sympathy for his prey. "You are to behave like a cheating whore so that when I return for the summer everyone will feel sorry for me being hopelessly in love with someone like you and I shall be regarded as a saint for taking you back after you supposedly break my heart. If I'm going to be stuck here for another summer then I dam well want to walk around like I own the place – Do you understand. You have to make people hate you and love me in my absence" She just nodded numbly, not even trying to understand the direct order she had been given, only intending to obey. When she still looked sad Tom added "And by doing this you are making me _very_ happy. You understand. I need you to do this _for me_" She looked up and blushed, the pink in her cheeks contrasting brilliantly with the blue of her eyes, not that Tom noticed. She smiled wide at the prospect of helping him.

He smiled back, a cold and merciless smile, as he used his foot to kick the door a fraction more open so Mrs Cole in the hall could see them. He fixed his expression to one of sorrow and devotion and moved towards Amy, carefully brushing her hair off her face and playing his part as the devoted lover about to be torn away. Mrs Cole called to him that it was time to go and he glanced once at her, careful to maintain his mask of heart break, before turning back to Amy and kissing her passionately. Then without a glance back he picked up his small bag and walked out towards Mrs Cole.

"I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't with the young ones here to see… but I had to say goodbye properly" He chocked out, rather convincingly he thought. As he walked away and let his smirk creep onto his face he swore he heard Mrs Cole hold back a sob of sympathy. Next summer he would be king around her. But first he had Hogwarts, first he had _Home_. And he had to finish his research into his relation to the Gaunts. Because he had opened the chamber of secrets. He must be the heir of Slytherin himself. No more orphaned Tom, not around the other Slytherins. This year he would find the connection, he would be Slytherin's heir, and he would walk round Hogwarts School with his head held high as if he owned the place. Because in truth he did. Or at least a quarter of it. He let his smirk grow bigger as he got into the car taking him to the train station and to his kingdom. Yes, this year was going to be good.

**Don't ask about the weird chapter title, it just felt right. I know there is still no word of the time travellers but I promise they are in the next chapter! I'm just having a bit too much fun playing with Tom's character. First chapter was his good and sympathetic side, this chapter his messed up little shit side – and now on to the Prefect Goody Too Shoes at Hogwarts who has some dark secrets. And when the time travellers seem to know some of them you can bet both sides of Tom's true self will be showing up :) Please review! It would mean the world to me!**

Tom's age to Years:

1943 – 15/16 – Tom Opens the Chamber of Secrets and Myrtle dies

1944 – 16/17 – Summer, he murders his family after learning the truth

1945 – 17/18 – He leaves Hogwarts for a Job at Borgan and Burkes


End file.
